A Few Dirty Tricks between Friends
by expletive deleted
Summary: Giotto recruits a new guardian, G suffers. That's pretty much how these things work.


**Summary:** Giotto recruits a new guardian, G suffers. That's pretty much how these things work.  
**Prompt:** I wish I knew how to quit you!  
**Notes:** Someone told me Spade's design is based on a pirate's; I still like to think he was in a circus, but piracy is more useful in this case.

* * *

"Don't make me shoot you."

"In all honesty, G, I assure you that I'd never make you do that."

Giotto was a rotten rat-bastard, and he knew and enjoyed it. G scowled back at his placid smile and said, "Why in God's name would you trust a soldier?"

"A spy," Giotto corrected. Then he nodded to signify, in response to G's expression of flatly disgusted shock, that yes, he was being serious.

"I have my pride," said G, "but I could weep. So what's your—Giotto, don't you dare take out a handkerchief."

"But you said you might—"

"Giotto!"

He tried to keep looking demure, but grinned broadly as he stopped taking his handkerchief out of his breast pocket. G took a long, deep breath, and then exhaled it.

He walked across the sitting room and seated himself on the couch, stretching his legs on the seat, and looked back to Giotto standing by the window. At least he wasn't still pretending to admire the view. "So what's your logic this time?" he said, returning to his question. "It'll be good, I'm sure. Like 'Of course we need to turn a priest into a criminal; then people will _trust_ us!' Or that fun one, 'Well, if the landlord is buying men to root the Vongola out, everything can be solved by brainwashing his son to our side'."

"It worked," Giotto said simply.

"And the landlord did shoot you," G said. He eyed Giotto's left side balefully, the fleshy part above the hip, and higher up around his ribs. Right now, in his good, pressed suit, he looked as proper as money and stature demanded. Back then he'd looked like dogs' meat. "That's something. I take solace where I can."

"Mm." He was still smiling. This idea about Alaude had him in a good mood.

"Now the pirate, I'll grant you, makes sense. But there was also the classic reasoning, 'All we need to do to corrupt the _other_ priest is to steal him from his homeland and duties, make him put away his flutes for once in his life, and teach him Italian'."

"And learn Japanese ourselves," said Giotto. "It was only fair."

"But someone in the military, Giotto - a _spy_! Employee of the same people trying to stamp us out! The ones who used to let the landlords do anything they liked to our village. We should drive him out right now, make an example, and you want to invite him to join the Vongola!"

"You forgot one," said Giotto. "From your list. There was also 'Even if he is injured and running away from something dangerous, and all he owns is a gun with two bullets left, and he is already branded for the world to see, with the mark of one of the Families ... he can't be that bad, probably, because I think so'."

The grandfather clock in the corner - an affectation that Lampo insisted gave the room class - marked quiet seconds.

"Yeah, that. You were really stupid at ten," said G. "Look how that went wrong."

"We managed." Now Giotto's grin was enormous. "And look at all the ways it went right."

G swung his legs off the seat and sat upright. He held out his hand, Giotto strode over and took it, and they shook in agreement.

"So. The spy. What is that meant to accomplish?" G said.

"Alaude does the same kind of thing we do," said Giotto, and dragged an armchair around the coffee table so that he could sit near G. "He fights for peace and doesn't hesitate about judging what peace _is_, and he's a good man." His eyes were alight with excitement. He was dangerous with ideas, and times like this, G wanted to drag Cozart back across the water. _He_ had an ounce of common sense.

"It will be like this, G. He was sent here to root our organisation out. But he's supposed to find out that we cause harm, that we disrupt the peace."

"We do those things!"

"Only to protect, which is how Alaude works too. He'll be on our side. We have to let him into the Vongola because it gives him what he wants. He'd find out about our operations anyway - we'd barely be able to stop him."

Damn it, there was that overawed delight. It was probably too late if Giotto had got admiring. The stronger someone was, the more insistent he could get on dragging them into the fold.

"Once he sees what we do, he'll join. I know it. Alaude's resources and his skills ... he'd really be able to help us! But first we need him to trust us. So. He has to work alongside the guardians."

It'd be _easy_ to shoot him, just a bit, and then G could handle things while Giotto recovered quietly in a distant room... "All _right_," said G. "We let the spy straight into the heart of the organisation. Sounds spectacular. But we do it this way, Giotto: we're never all in the same place as him - it'd make an ambush too easy. Two or three of the guardians won't be introduced to him until we trust him. If he's as good as you say he'll find out about them, but at least he won't have first-hand knowledge."

"The point is to welcome him wholeheartedly."

"Ah, yes, of course," G said with a sedate nod. "He should meet Knuckle last, though, so that there is someone to bury the rest of us properly if this plan goes wrong."

The good-natured excitement dropped off Giotto's face, and he came back to earth a little. "All right, then. All right. The two of us can meet him, and Lampo. We should probably wait with Ugetsu ... Alaude might not approve of a foreigner. He gets ... odd..." (Significant pauses! Holy Mother, last time those had meant _Daemon Spade_.) "...about expressing patriotism."

"Or we stick Ugetsu in front of him first," G said, resigning himself to significant pauses and all, and fell back into the couch. "So that Alaude doesn't think we're hiding a big secret, and he gets used to working with a foreigner."

"Yes ... yes! That's a much better idea. Thank you." It sounded like Giotto was smiling again, his voice very warm, and G sighed at the ceiling.

"You know," said Giotto, "you shouldn't be in the Vongola for a reason like that. For things that happened years ago."

"Ha, yes, more idealism instead would solve all our problems. Maybe you shouldn't have so much fun making use of my reasons."

That brought another silence. G rolled his eyes before sitting up, and kicked Giotto's chair until he stopped looking so mopey and nudged G's foot away.

"I've got my reasons, and they're not going anywhere." G glared at him. "Apparently one of them will always _need_ to be keeping you alive. Look, you couldn't make me stay if I didn't want to." He met Giotto's eyes to make sure that his point was getting across, until he started smiling back. "For one thing, you're a twig," he added.

Giotto laughed. "I could still take you on. So I'd still at least try and get you to stay."

Wasn't that missing the point entirely? G almost wished it was. If he should decide one day to leave, if even his stubbornness snapped and he wanted nothing more to do with the Vongola, then there would be a good reason. But he could not imagine the magnitude of such a reason, and here and now, he only felt grateful to be valued by one he valued so highly.

"Drinking." G stood. "It's time to drink _a lot_."

"Taking solace where you can?"

"You're learning. And you're also paying, by the way. For as long as it takes to get Alaude to supposedly see the light."

"After which you'll pay. For the rest of our lives."

"Of course." G solemnly held out his hand. Giotto shook with some amusement. "It's no more preposterous than most of the things I agree to," G explained.

That was _true_. G was awed as he realised it, and nearly angry.

Giotto swung an arm around his shoulders with a smile, ignoring the ungracious anger. "You'll see. It's going to be fine. Well, let's go!"

So G returned the favour and didn't get annoyed at that last stupid assurance when the facts were so uncertain, and went. He'd just keep his guns in good shape and stock up on bullets, and in spite of all reason, he'd trust Giotto.


End file.
